From last year’s big kerplunk, scientists discovered water on the moon. Now nine months of analyses of our nearest celestial neighbor reveal new insights into where it may have come from — and where else it could be found.

It’s in pockets, not vast oceans. It may have arrived via comets or asteroids, or it may have been created there.

At a technical gathering in Mountain View, NASA’s LCROSS mission leader Anthony Colaprete and other scientists shared detailed analyses of a bold crash-and-splash experiment into the dark Cabeus crater that sent plumes of lunar debris into the sunlight — revealing concentrated crystals of water.

“We’ve discovered a brand-new environment there we never knew existed,” said Colaprete. “It is much colder than we anticipated, but it does have energy, and it has water and materials of all sorts that are accumulating there, with chemistry going on.”

“It is a laboratory unto itself,” he said.

Last November, to great fanfare, NASA’s LCROSS mission announced that spectroscopic data showed the presence of water molecules and hydroxyl, the byproduct of water made from one hydrogen and one oxygen atom. At Tuesday’s NASA Lunar Science Forum, scientists described findings from the mission.

They found, for instance, that the LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) effort landed on an oasis in a dry landscape — but the moon likely holds other wet spots, separated by miles.

“There are areas of relatively high concentration — wet or wetter than the Sahara desert,” said Colaprete. “That doesn’t sound wet, but on the moon, it’s a swamp.”

“So this poses some fundamental questions: How does the water get there in first place? How is it distributed after it gets there?” he said.

“And this is really important information for exploration — we want to go back with mobility,” he said. “You can’t land anywhere and find the concentrations we found.”

Based on this new analysis, the LCROSS team now believes that the water was either delivered or manufactured on site. It’s too early to say which may have happened.

“Maybe the crater was the site of ancient comet impact,” which delivered water, said Colaprete.

A package of cold temperatures and high energy could trigger the creation of water, he said. “Because it is really cold, all kinds of things freezing out and sticking to the (dust) grains,” he said. “And then all you need is a little added energy — protons from the sun, perhaps — to do chemistry.”

In other airless bodies — such as Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn — these same processes may be occurring, he said.

The LCROSS team discovered other important compounds, such as hydrogen gas and methane.

This holds practical promise. They could be used to create rocket fuel, to propel a return trip to Earth — or take us on a route to Mars and beyond.

They’ve also made precise measurements of the experiment.

Just before impact, they detected magnesium, sodium and possibly carbon monoxide and hydroxide. After impact, the first detection was a thermal flash and a hot 1,000-degree Celsius vapor cloud racing from the crater. Nearby, they measured hydrogen and other gases. Substances such as sodium and even mercury also were found.

Significantly, they landed within 80 meters of their planned target. And in the crater, which measured 30 meters across, “we hit something quite fluffy and porous,” said Colaprete.

The total mass of ice in the plume, 25 seconds after impact, weighed 131 kilograms, or about 285 pounds, they found. The main plume, at 20 seconds post-impact, measured 12 kilometers, or about seven miles, in diameter. The plume traveled at a speed of 420 meters per second.

The LCROSS experiment has deepened our understanding of the moon — where, unlike Earth, erosion and other forces have not altered its landscape, the scientists agreed.

“The moon is a great repository of history, and so coupled to the Earth,” said Colaprete. “Understanding what happened to it helps us understand what happened to us.”

Contact Lisa M. Krieger at 408-920-5565.

What lunar scientists learned

– Lunar water is distributed in pockets, not uniformly. – Water was either delivered by comet or asteroid – or created, on site, through chemical processes.– Other useful compounds were also found, such as hydrogen gas and methane.

Lisa M. Krieger is a science writer at The Mercury News, covering research, scientific policy and environmental news from Stanford University, the University of California, NASA-Ames, U.S. Geological Survey and other Bay Area-based research facilities. Lisa also contributes to the Videography team. She graduated from Duke University with a degree in biology. Outside of work, she enjoys photography, backpacking, swimming and bird-watching.

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